


The Castle

by basketcasewrites



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 08:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14492625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basketcasewrites/pseuds/basketcasewrites
Summary: The cold seeps into his bones. Through the cracks in the walls and the floorboards. Is as much a part of him as he is a part of the castle, haunting winding passages and curving staircases leading into nowhere.☀The Beast is a monster. He is a creature of darkness and shadows.The Beast cannot love; he does not know how.This is what they say of him. This is the story that has been told of him.





	The Castle

The cold seeps into his bones. Through the cracks in the walls and the floorboards. Is as much a part of him as he is a part of the castle, haunting winding passages and curving staircases leading into nowhere.

The cold seeps into his bones. He no longer feels it like he used to— when he was young, when he was angry and afraid at what he had become. Accustomed to nothing but warmth; to fires roaring in hearths of halls the size of houses and candles in holders on the walls.

He runs a hand down the railing, steps creaking under his weight as he makes his way to the darkened banquet hall.

 _But, God, you love to torture yourself._ She had said that once. Her smile wry, affectionate, as she gazed at him from behind a trellis covered in tamed and dancing roses. Crimson, almost the shade of her hair falling across her pale hazel eyes, he remembers.

Pale hazel eyes which watched him closely. Alight as she listened.

The cold seeps into his bones. He brings himself to shudder, to shiver. Easy to do with the memory of her seeping into the forefront of his mind.

 _Natalia,_ he imagines saying her name. Imagines he breathes out the soft vowels of her name and watches as it takes shape, _becomes_ her. Outside. He imagines he says it outside— she had always preferred it outside, where natural light could touch the pages of her book and wind could tickle her cheeks and fresh air filled her lungs.

She loved Winter the best, he remembers. He never understood why; never understood its appeal.

The cold seeps into his bones. Finds its way beneath the clothes he wears, old and tattered. He trails a hand over the walls leading to the banquet hall, feeling his way in the dark as he lets his mind wander. Grunting, he frees his hand, the sharp corner of a large, gilded frame catching in his fur.

When she was here, it had been different. Bringing light and life to everything that she touched. He rarely drew the curtains now; the sunlight streaming through the arching windows did nothing to lighten the rooms. Unlike when she was here and the sun had fought to shine over her, to touch her with rays of pleasant gold.

 _Natalia._ It hurt for him when she left. Hurt for him to even think her name.

Except for him, the castle stands empty of life. When Natalia left she had taken everyone with her— that, and it hadn't been hard for them to leave him.

In the middle of the hall, shadows creeping across floors thick with dust, he stands.

He has been alone for so long now. Weeks became months. Next, he checked, and it turned out to have been years. _Years._ Years since he had last been in the presence of another person— since he'd last had someone to talk to, someone to sit beside in comfortable silence.

Cold, alone. He sighs. The sound wrenched from his gut, guttural and deafening in the cavernous room.

✴️

Banging on the door weaves itself into his dream. He shoots up in the bed. Awakened abruptly, his clawed hands clutch fistfuls of the thick blanket and tear it to shreds.

He clings to the last vestiges of the dream. Holds onto the image of bouncing curls and a red-lipped smile.

The banging grows louder, more desperately urgent. It shakes the house as it stands, rattles hanging frames and cabineted cutlery.

 _But, God, you love to torture yourself._ The words of the dream Natalia echo in his mind, mimicking those of the Natalia he lost. He touches the floor and the haze of sleep lifts, any remnants of his dream lifting with it.

He does not take kindly to visitors. The last time he had someone banging a fist against his front door, demanding entry, he was met with a storm, with torches and pitchforks and villagers baying for the spilling of his blood.

He steals through the maze-like passages. Anger propels him through the castle— anger at his sleep being disturbed, anger at the audacity of someone daring to knock upon his door. Anger... and hope.

Natalia has returned to him, he thinks. In his hope, forgets just how long has passed. When he does remember, the tip of a hoof catching on an uneven tile and sending him stumbling forward, the anger replaces all else.

He stands before the door, bringing himself to his full height. He knows what he looks like— thick blue horns curving outward from his head, sharpened nails extending from clawed hands, towering and covered in a thick coat of dark fur. He looks menacing.

He bares his teeth, growls. Relishes the burn of a roar as it tears through his throat and he wrenches open the double doors.

No brandished blades and fires. Not this time.

"I ask you to grant me sanctuary," the young boy laying across the castles stone steps says, one hand raised to knock loudly, the other clutched to his stomach. His breathing is laboured, voice strangled as he speaks. "Please, I ask you to grant me sanctuary."

The young man stares up at him, undeterred. Wild-eyed and pleading. Red stains the front of his torn white shirt and the palm of his shaking hand.

✴️

His name is Steve. He says it, chest rising and falling with stuttered breaths, just as he is lead to rest in one of the unused sofas lining the lounge. Introducing himself with a crooked smile, a grimace of pain.

Clearing his throat, "I cannot help you," is the only reply he is willing to give. He has not spoken in so long. His voice is hoarse and slices his throat raw.

 _Yet I have brought him inside,_ he thinks, at a loss. _Yet he is bleeding over my lounge suite._

He looks at Steve— a man, not the boy he thought Steve was at first sight. Sandy blond hair falls in front of his eyes, the sheen of sweat sticks it to his forehead.

"It's fine," Steve grunts, his voice strangled, "In a few minutes, I'll be okay." He inhales loudly. His gaze is clear as he looks up, the haze of pain already subsiding from his blue eyes.

Unafraid, like Natalia had been, but she had not arrived on his doorstep covered in blood and deep wounds.

"Tell me your name," Steve demands, grinning through gritted teeth.

"My name..." He hasn't used a name for as long as he has been alone. There is no need for one; he is hardly saying his name to himself, or murmuring it on those rare occasions he catches sight of his passing reflection. Natalia had loved his name, littering her sentences and their conversations with the sweet nickname she had granted him. "My name is James."

  


His wound closes almost instantly. James asks him how and is greeted by a crooked smile. "I was cursed as a child. I cannot die when there's a full moon."

James examines the jagged line, the raw pink skin, adorning the man's torso. A new scar. One of many. James decides to believe him.

He sees Natalia sitting beside Steve, legs kicked up on the low coffee table and twirling a thick strand of hair around a slender finger. _And what now? What now, Bucky?_ Her eyes cutting to Steve seated, shirt torn, pillowed by old cushions. _Let him move in? Send him away into the night? What now?_

She is his voice of reason; the closest to a conscience he has come to.

He leads Steve to the southern wing, opens a door into a room, dark as musty as all the others. "You asked for sanctuary, and I have granted it to you," James says, wondering why Steve does not quiver in his wake, "You may leave in the morning, if you so please."

Steve takes a step beyond the door, into the large room. It had been Natalia's room on those difficult few nights when she had first arrived, bursting with righteous ire and the will of a canary desperate to free itself from the confines of its cage.

He does not like visitors, is not used to them, does not appreciate them.  
He regrets allowing this man to enter his home, but he can hear Natalia telling him to offer Steve a warm bed and a fresh meal and knows he has extended his hand too far to withdraw now, sending the man off into the night and forcing him to fend for himself.

Lips part, as if Steve is about to say something. James does not care for anymore conversation; not on this night. He takes careful steps back, pulling the door with him until he hears the satisfying catching of the lock.

Cold seeps into his bones. More here, in the southernmost part of the castle, than anywhere else. Its cold hands inch their way over him and tighten around his heart. Caresses him in its icy hold.

He does not like the southern wing, he cannot remember ever liking the southern wing. Not even when he was a small boy and the castle was alive with running feet and able hands and ceaseless laughter. And alive with _fire_. Fire licking in the stone fireplaces, toasting even the corners of the castle.  
The southern wing was always freezing, even with a burning fire. The slightest draft was exaggerated, growing into a chill which did not hesitate to settle around you like a like a vine, like a lover's hug.

His guest will not be staying long. Steve will be fine in the southern wing, for a few nights.

  


He is silent. Inching through the castle, the ghost of a monstrosity. 

Steve does not leave at the break of dawn as had been expected. His unsure footsteps barely cause a floorboard to creak. _He is as weightless as he looks,_ James thinks, listening to the man try to find his way through the rooms.

The scraping of a chair against broken tile reaches his ears from the dining room, a scrape and a sharp thud as the chair, the person seated, is brought near the table. The sound of cutlery against dishes reverberates through the emptiness. 

James stands at the foot of the staircase, cold tendrils of air attacking his fur covered ankles.  


 

☀️  


 

Steve does not leave in the dead of night, or in any of the mornings that follow. 

Each morning, dawn breaking through the clouds, Steve finds his way to the kitchen. He follows the scent of food, mingling with musty air and wafting to his room from around confusing bends and sharp turns. 

The spread is modest— eggs, scrambled on some mornings, fried on others, folded in smooth omelettes on some; meat; fruit; freshly squeezed juice.

He sits alone, eats alone. Is cautious as he wanders the walls of this castle, alone. And, when he is strong enough from the regularly provided meals and occasional jar of healing potion, he takes a few steps into the garden.

He knows the history of the castle, has spent hours studying it. The castle has been in the Barnes' family for generations, was built from the ground up by the first of the settled family over one hundred years ago.  
Hooves do not make for careful treading, not in a place as old as this. 

The Beast— _James,_ Steve reminds himself, poking listlessly at a small crystalline bowl of jelly. Cherry red and glistening; his favourite.

Five sunrises and four sunsets have passed since Steve had first been helped into the castle, James shouldering his weight without difficulty.

Five sunrises and four sunsets, and James maintains a careful distance.  
Clothes, pressed and folded into neat bundles tied with silken ribbons, appear at his door each morning. The meals are left timeously for  Steve, today in a different dining hall then on the first morning.

No interaction beyond this exists. The Beast is a passing shadow in the corner of Steve's eye. He is the sound of hoofed footsteps in the distance, attempts at discretion failing for how old and rotten the floorboards are. He is a grunt, a growl in the darkness.

"He has to come to you," Natalia said, tugging her wild hair into a ponytail. Her eyes fierce.

Steve swallows the last of the dessert.

He will not seek James out.

✴️

He does not seek James out, as much as he wishes to. Instead he wanders.

Slipping out of the shoes he awoke to find at his door, Steve walks through the sprawling garden. Crisp grass pokes at the undersides of his feet, dampens his toes as he curls them.

The garden welcomes Spring. He sits, legs akimbo, and takes in the colours of the flowering buds surrounding him. This is as close to an artists's paradise as he will ever get, Steve reckons, shading the petal of a closed rose.

A breeze picks up, ruffles his hair and the pages of his sketchpad. The morning air is cold. Icy against his barely covered skin— the undershirt and loose trousers left for him not thick enough to keep him warm.

He shivers, his hand shakes with it and ruins the edge of the flower he is working on. His cough echoes, in the silence of this secluded garden it is loud enough to ring uncomfortably around him and in his ears.

That evening, tracking moist footprints across the stone, Steve lets himself into the room nestled in the back. On the bed, above the sparse linen covering, is set a deep blue coat.

It smells faintly of dust and lilac. Like it has not been used in years but somebody has cleaned it recently, has made an attempt to mask the fact.  
The coat is far too big, hanging off his tiny frame without any difficulty, pooling below his knees.

He places the coat over the back of the wooden chair standing in the corner. The Beast had seen him, then, earlier in the garden.

Steve runs a calloused fingertip over the intricate drawing he finished that afternoon, warm sunlight basking over him through a break in the trees.

 _He has to come to you._ Steve hears Natalia's voice echoing in his head, around him in the room. He can see the warning glare of her eye, the slim draw of her mouth.

But she asked him to come to this castle— standing in its own lonesome shadow on the top of this mountain, looming and casting the villages surrounding it in darkness with tales of the hulking monster-- the once upon a time prince-- haunting its halls— and she can't expect him to do nothing. Can't expect him to wait and wander and hope that his mere presence will bring the Beast out of hiding.

 _James,_ Steve reminds himself. _He said his name is James._  


☀️  


Steve is still here.

James remembers behaving much the same when Natalia had first arrived— watching from behind broken walls, spying through windows tracked with thick dust, tracking movements with a careful ear.

He cannot help himself. He is so drawn to this man— this man who looks as if simply breathing will break him, this man who refuses to leave. Steve is a mystery, and James has always been easily intrigued.

"I know you're there," Steve says, a quiet utterance. Hunched over a pad of paper, his back to James.

It seems he has grown tired of waiting. Of pretending he does not know when James is around him, watching him.

James takes a step out from behind the broken wall lining this corner of the garden. The page, ripped from the small sketchpad Steve constantly carries with him, crinkles in his breast pocket.

"You found the paint," James notes. He holds himself rigidly, pains at the stiffness of his voice.

Steve nods. He hums under his breath, a tune James can't place, and paints a smooth stroke of sapphire along the top of the page. "You left it right outside my door," he says and, after a pause, adds, "Thank you."

A series of chirps sound around them. James clenches his jaw at the lilting musical notes— birds do not settle around the castle, no animals do. No animals have taken residence at the castle since Natalia left.

He shakes off his discomfort; the cold, skeletal hands clasping at him and forcing James out of the gentle sunlight and towards realizations darkened to him.

He shakes off his discomfort. Hands clasped behind his back, he watches Steve. Casts the half-done painting an acquiring gaze over the young man's slender shoulder.

"Beautiful." His voice is soft. Soft enough he doubts Steve hears him.

"My mother taught me," he answers.

What is stark grey in reality is fluid, regal, on the thick parchment. Dusty clouds against dull sky is a soft blend of blues and whites. Steve has captured the castle, has made it seem so much more beautiful than it ever could. In the painting, not yet done as it is, the castle is more the one James remembers from when he was a boy.

"She taught you well," James grunts. He resists the urge to touch the painting, the colours still wet.

  


Natalia, too, had loved art. She could not make art, James remembers with a sad smile, but she could look at it for hours. She tried to teach him, too. Pulling out her books and showing him pictures of paintings and sculptures and figurines.

The wine is bitter as he swallows it. As it always is, ever since his transformation. He no longer remembers how wine should taste, but is sure it is not the thick, acrid taste of which he has grown accustomed.

The glass is cool on the inside of his lip. James downs the rest of the wine before pouring himself another glass.

 _My hands cannot create beauty; they are weapons. But my eyes, and my heart, and my_ _mind—_ _do not doubt their love for art._ Natalia said that sometimes, when the wine was aged well and flowed freely, or when James grew bored of paging through books and chose to question her.

"And your hobbies?" he asked, teeth bared maliciously in a harmless smile. "Your art? I have yet to see any."

Her smile crinkled the skin around her eyes, the tiny folds a testament to how much she had really loved to laugh. "Bucky," Natalia breathed his name around a soundless laugh, her hand gliding over a menacing horn as she passed, "Asking me to create art is like asking you to dance naked through the streets of Brooklyn. Impossible."

Highly unlikely, not impossible. James had corrected her; had received a pinch on his arm for doing so.

It had been easier with Natalia.

He had been able to anticipate her arrival. To make plans for her stay ever since he caught her father stealing from his garden.  
He hadn't been alone then— not as he is now. Then, he had had help.

He runs a hand over the drawing, creased from being folded and carried around in his pocket. Is careful not to tear it as he smooths it to lie flat on the hand-carved desk standing in the corner of his room.  
It is a rough sketch, shaded in a variety of dark charcoal colours. Done with care, placed under a salt-shaker and left on the dining table for James to find.

In his hands— his delicately child-like hands— Steve held magic. The ability to create something exquisite from absolutely nothing.

He can feel it happening again. This inability to keep his eyes off someone, to stay away from them.

The castle has been so dead for so long. _James_ has been so dead for so long— cold, a tomb in the depths of Winter.  
Then Steve arrived and, with him, brought the sunshine. Brought Summer, breaking through the heavy clouds which settled over the castle.

He can feel it happening again. And he is afraid. He has been so alone for so long now— he is not ready to travel the twisting path that comes with falling victim to emotions.

He is not ready to be hurt again.  


☀️  


The Beast, as the stories passed through the cities and the villages go, is a creature of darkness. Wicked as the tyrants of old, the ones who had enslaved entire civilizations simply for the joy of having a nation bowing at their feet.

 _He was born that way._ A fisherman says to his customer, a traveler passing through, as he wraps two filleted fish in grease paper.

 _He was cursed by a witch for being cruel and selfish_. A mother tells the children circling her, voice lowered in warning.

 _He broke into the castle, destroyed it and devoured the family._ An old tourist couple murmur, conversing over a plate of chocolate biscuits.

He is heartless and cruel, they all say. He sold his soul for immortality, he has a mound of granite where he should have a heart, he steals children from their beds and tortures them. He is a murderer, a soulless killer.

 _The Beast_. His name is whispered, passed from ear to ear, the warped version of his life story told at bedtimes.

✴️

 _The_ _Romanova_ _girl was taken, did you hear?_ It begins in the bakery, Mr Sheehan's eyes darting quickly around the opening of the room as he scribbles down a order.

A shocked gasp, a shaking hand. _The_ _Romanova_ _girl?_

 _The_ _Romanova_ _girl?_ The florist snips off an inch too much from the rose stems. _But why would he take her? Why would he take her?_

Her father was a drunk, you know. The stories the villagers tell paint him to be a hero, one of almost mythological standards— the kind of man written about in epics. They talk of him as if he were greatness personified.

He was not.

Ivan Romanova lived for the drops of liquor at the bottom of the bottle, for the taste of alcohol on his tongue, for the feel of it settling in his stomach.

He lied and he stole. He swindled and he cheated.

He sacrificed his own daughter to save himself.

His hands shaking, the Beast had found him crouched in a corner of his garden. The monster cornered him, loomed over him as his blade cut through the stem of a white rose.

 _The stab of a sword for each rose you planned to steal._ The Beast growled, large hands fisted at his sides.

Three roses, fisted in his grip, already browning at the edges. Three times the sword would penetrate his body— twice before it was thrust deep enough to kill him.

 _Please,_ he pleaded, _these are for my daughter. It's all that she asked for_.

✴️

They say the Beast took her. They say it like he skulked into the village and stole her from the confines of her room and her bed— as if he could.

They do not tell the entire story.

Natalia arrived on the eve of a snowstorm. Hair a halo, a crown of flickering flames, dancing wildly as she rode toward the castle.

She brought herself to his gates. Dismounted the fierce steed and, steps determined, strode to the wide double-doors, open in wait for her.

"My father has a debt to pay," Natalia called into the emptiness, voice bouncing from the walls and echoing into the enveloping nothingness.

_Unafraid. They say she was unafraid._

_And we know her well enough to know that we she would be unafraid._

_Oh, that girl? And fear? They were never friends_.

Natalia planted her feet firmly on the wide front steps, held her hands on her hips. Her voice did not shake. Her eyes issued a challenge.

He saw her, standing at his front doors in her floating white dress, the soft breeze playing with the light material.  
He saw her; Boudica, with the power to destroy him and all that he had built.  


_☀_  


The stairs barely creak under his weight, not like he has heard it creak under James weight.

The stairs barely creak under his weight. He is all bones, appears adolescent and as if the twenty-four birthdays he experienced had not even passed.

The stairs barely creak under his weight, he easily manoeuvres around the one which shrieks when it is treaded upon.

"And to where are you going?" James asks, his voice disembodied and carrying from the darkness, down the twisting staircase.

He stumbles over the next step, catches himself before he falls. For as large as James is, and as indiscreet as he often can be, when he tries he is silent.

"It's lovely outside," Steve calls up to him, "I thought you would like to join me."

"Why would you think that?" James growls, the flash of anger gone as quick as it had arrived.

Floorboards creak as he begins to walk away. Steve may not see James, but he can hear his heavy footsteps as he leaves.

He exhales a tired sigh.

Natalia sent Steve to this place— reassurance in her words, determination in her red-lipped smile.

 _Wait for him, he'll come to you,_ she said, as if she were an exemplification of patience.

Wait for him, Steve scoffed. He never has been good at following instructions, never has been much good at waiting, either.

"James?" Steve's calls, reaching the top of the stairs.

Anxious to continue his passage, Steve stalls. He runs a finger over the wooden railing, around the width of the newel post at the end, and wipes away a slim streak of thick dust, revealing intricate ornamental designs.

For all the inches of the castle he traversed, he has willed himself to stay away from the uppermost floor of the northern wing.  
Once, Steve can tell, this wing had been the most extravagant of the house. A layer of dust blankets torn rich mauve curtains, and clings to the broken furniture strewn across rotting floors. Once, but no longer.

"James," he calls again, hopes for an answer.

A weak streak of light falls across the passageway, through a door cracked open the slightest bit. The only door open on this floor and the only light to be found.

His knock is tentative against the door, bruises on his knuckles singing painfully at the light touch. Steve calls out the Beast's name again, his mouth near the gap between the door and the jamb.

Natalia warned him, brushed the hair out from his eyes and said, "It won't be easy. He is hardened... broken. But you _must_ try." Saddened eyes cast aside, not completely meeting Steve's gaze.

He sighs quietly, in the noiselessness of the floor it sounds like a loud gust of wind. The wood is cool beneath his forehead. "I made you something," Steve says.

"He always wanted me to make something for him," Natalia murmured fondly, staring at her hands with a muted smile, "But, my hands... They are not made for that."

He places the painting, rolled and secured with a line of twine tied in a bow, gently on the dust-covered floor. "I'm sorry for disturbing you," Steve whispers.  


☀  


"The Beast," Natalia said, flicking Steve on his ear, "Never call him the Beast."

She walked passed him, moving effortlessly. Gliding as if her feet did not even have to touch the ground, as if the wind simply carried her where she wanted to go.

Curling into the chair across from Steve, she regarded him carefully. Her eyes, Steve noticed, were more guarded now than they had once been.

"What do I call him? What did _you_ call him?"

Her smile was tight, secretive. Steve could read the pain in her face and it grasped at his heart. "Bucky," Natalia said, the words a soft utterance, "I used to call him Bucky... He'll tell you what name to use for him, and you should listen."

He had been eight-years-old when Natalia was taken. Young enough to clearly remember the gruesome stories, told by grisly teenagers and worn adults in front of small children without care.

Natalia had been twenty-two. "Time passes differently in the castle," she explained, when Steve asked her how it was that she had not aged.

He ran a finger over the rim of the teacup, one of the many items Natalia had brought back with her. The tip of his slender finger caught in a chip near the slender handle.

✴️

"You were gone for so long. They said you were dead. You should be dead." He greeted Natalia on her doorstep, eyes as flat as his constrained voice.

"Come inside," she said, ushering Steve into the modest house her father had left her upon his death— killed by his grief, they say; it was more likely the drink that did it.

The pot of tea, present for each of their nightly visits, sat between them on the coffee table. She had twelve years of memories from the the castle, and Steve was a keen audience.  


☀  


He has heard so much about James, from afternoons spent with Natalia, Steve is sure he has been in love with him from before he held hope of ever meeting him.

Is sure he has been in love with him from before Natalia, after years of their strange friendship, told him of the intricacies of her plan.

"You want _me_ to break the curse?" he asked, incredulous. "How can _I_ , if you couldn't? _Why_ should _I_? Why can't you?"

"It is... complicated," Natalia said. She turned her back to Steve and all he caught next was a muttering about the last fallen rose petal. Louder, facing Steve, she said, "I cannot return. I cannot break the curse— too much has happened for me to be of any help... But it is not the same for you. You can still destroy it. And you must."  


☀️  


Sunlight filters through the high windows, falls in gentle sweeps across castle floors and walls.

Cold seeps in through the cracks of the stone, touches his hoofed feet and his uncovered hands. The castle is cold, but it is not the coldness he is used to. It is a cold which has been forced aside, pushed to a dark corner by the warmth Steve has brought with him.

It reminds James of when Natalia had been here.

Sunlight filters through the high windows. Dances with the deep red curtains in the banquet hall, shines on Steve as he sits in the very center of the large room. Light falls on him in sheets, bounces on his straw blond hair and colours it a dark gold.

James wonders if the man does anything besides draw and paint the entire day. Steve walks, James remembers; he has observed him idly strolling the outskirts of the garden. There is not much for him to do— the castle is hardly a destination for tourists.

Hunched over the sketchpad, Steve pays no attention to James. His brow is furrowed in concentration, his lower lip sucked into his mouth and held between his teeth.

"The painting," James said, speaking up when Steve glanced from the progressing artwork to the gleaming window, "It's beautiful. Thank you."

"I didn't think you would like it."

"I did. I do... I do like it."

The painting— exquisite in its imperfections— was the one James had watched Steve begin, the morning after gifting him the paint he had found tucked in a corner of the attic. Added to it— regal before the castle, turned a bit to the side, indistinct features caught in a blur of motion— stood James. His horns curved out from his head, caught one of the last rays of sunlight falling over the garden.

A hand raised to shield his eyes from the shine of the sunlight, James walks the distance from the arched entrance to the hall. He casts a solid shadow over Steve.

"Would you like me to paint you?" Steve asks, looking up at James. His eyes are the blue of the ocean— the ocean as James remembers it, wild and depthless, tranquil and edged with something like danger— and they glisten in the rays of light.

Startled, James takes a step backwards. "Pardon?"

"Paint you. You know—" Steve waves his paintbrush in the air, a drop of light blue landing on the wood-paved floor. " _Paint. You._ "

James exhales a nervous laugh. "Why?" he asks, closing the gap between him and Steve.

Steve shrugs, his shoulders rising and falling beneath his loose, powder blue buttoned-up shirt. "Because I want to."

 _Why?_ James stops himself from asking. He tugs at the collar of his shirt, smooths down the front of his coat— uniform in shades of royal and navy blue.

The Beast has been painted many times— as a monster with his claws extended, stealing children from their beds and terrorizing cities.

The Beast has been painted many times, but he has never been asked. Least of all been asked by a painter with such delicately deceiving eyes.

He drags a chair from a corner of the room, sets it in front of Steve. "Is here fine?" James asks, waiting for the approving nod before he sits.

  


"Why did you stay?" James asks. A half hour has passed, the sun dropping in the sky. He squirms in the chair, growing uncomfortable the longer he sits in it. "Here. In the castle, I mean?"

It has been bothering him for weeks. He almost did not dare to ask.

Steve uncrosses and recrosses his legs. "I was injured..." he pauses, and smiles to himself. "You were good to me, and I had nowhere else to go."

"I could have killed you. Did the people of wherever you're from not ever warn you of me?"

"Please stop moving," Steve directs absently, adding black to the brown of James fur. "The people I know are fools. Why should I listen to them?" The smile he shoots James is quick, he looks away before James registers it. "And I knew you wouldn't hurt me. I could feel it."

Fading light touches the silver window frames, burns as it shines into James eye.  
He is not used to so much light. He is not used to being regarded as Steve regards him.

Words escape him then. He sits perfectly still, waiting for Steve to grant him permission to move.

Blond hair falls into his eyes, Steve tucks it behind his ear only for it to cast a veil over his face moments later. The constant movement, paintbrush still in hand, colours Steve's face with streaks of brown, blue, yellow.

"Do you have any family?" James asks.

"Orphan," Steve states as an explanation, matter-of-fact and with a small shrug.

"So am I." He taps a finger against his knee, thoughtful. "There must be someone who will miss you."

"No one. Well..." He halts mid-sentence, swipes his fringe of hair behind his ear and stares at the painting. " _One._ My friend... Natasha... But she knows it's best for me to be away."

James does not query any more. He sits, waits, watches. Allows for Steve to work magic with the precision of his delicate hands.

When the sun starts to set, darkness chasing away the sunlight James was just beginning to enjoy, and the hands of the grandfather clock land on the hour, James makes to stand.

He gestures for Steve's attention. "We should stop for now— supper will be ready."

The noise Steve makes is one of disdain, a snort which echoes in the room. "So it seems you shall be joining me tonight." His eyes are on his work— there is the crease of his brow, the pinch of his face, the frown, his words fraught with an underlying humour.

James clears his throat. "So it seems I shall be." He smiles at the look of pleasant bewilderment flashing across Steve's face and stands, reaching a hand out to him. "May I?"

He grasps the small hand gently in his own. He is careful with his strength, handles Steve as if he is made of a material more fragile than glass. Not since Natalie has he touched a living person, and the pure warmth of his being surprises James.

Floorboards creak under his weight as they do not creak from the pressure of Steve's stride. He leads the way to the dining hall and wonders how the man has survived so many years when he looks as if the simple touch of the wind causes him illness.

A familiar spread of food, enough for two on this night, is what greets them. James pulls out a chair for Steve, bows forward as he helps the man into his seat.

"What a gentleman," Steve notes dryly as James takes his own seat across from Steve. Only when he sits does Steve cut into the roast beef on the platter before them.

Old habits. He explains to himself with a shake of his head, sheepishly diverting his gaze. The wine is deep red, settling in the crystal glasses and catching the light as James pours for the two of them.

Steve nods his thanks, sips the wine with an appreciative smile. "Who makes all of this?" he asks, gesturing at the meal. "Meals are always prepared, the pantry is always stocked full... How is that so, when there is nobody else here and you never seem to leave the castle?"

"There used to be servants... but they all left a long time ago," James says, "The castle is enchanted, do you see, and it has been able to sort itself out. I don't know much of magic... But the enchantment, it, well, it knows what you want and what you need. What you favour and disregard."

"What happened to the servants?"

"That... Is a long story..." He pushes away his plate, piled high. Beyond the raise of an eyebrow, a frown around his mouthful of food, Steve does not push the topic of conversation.

The warmth of the day disappears, the cold he is used to seems to attack the dining hall with the fierce suddenness of a Summer storm. He shivers, gulps the last of his wine and pours himself another glass. It is bitter, but it settles in his stomach and warms him from the inside.

The warmth of the day disappears, but he gazes at Steve and thinks—maybe, one day soon— he will tell Steve of Natalia.  


☀️  


He awakens as he has awoken for the past few weeks— four weeks, Steve thinks. Dawn breaks, early morning light falls into the room through the heavy curtains he cannot bring himself to draw.

It lands on him gently, caresses him with the care of a lover. He disentangles from the blankets, thick layers in which he has buried himself in for the night, and stretches under the soft light.  
The southern wing is freezing in its coldness during the night.

He knows James would not begrudge him a change of rooms, but he doubts any of the other rooms in the castle have felt the touch of heat more than this one.

Steve imagines he would not have to worry about the fuss of blankets if he were to sleep beside James.  
Imagines that the hulking bulk of him— all sharp edges and harsh lines— would keep Steve more than sufficiently warm.  


☀  


The Beast does not sleep. This is what the people say, shaking their heads over steaming cups of coffee. Mouths pursed in judgement.

_Of course he does not sleep. Monsters do not sleep._

"They are wrong," Natalia said, fire crinkling in her darkened eyes, meeting Steve's gaze. "I have lied beside him, heard his snores as he slept. He is not a monster."  


☀️  


These empty halls carry sounds easily. A spoon dropped is an explosion of silver against stone, never just a spoon dropped; a cough is thunderous; a sneeze is devastating. A low humming is an entire orchestra, quiet singing is a whole choir.

He hears Steve before he sees him. His deep voice, a song James can't recognize, echoes through the castle and greets James. Calling him to the dining hall like a siren's song.

"He sings, he draws," James says from the doorway, "What else does he do?"

Steve glances over his shoulder, his face breaking into a wide smile at the sight of James. "He also likes to go on picnics."

"Does he?" James enters the room, smiling to himself at the sight of Steve packing a wrapped sandwich into a woven basket.

"You haven't eaten yet, have you?" Steve asks, turning to meet James' eyes, then. That furrow in his brow appearing once again.

Shaking his head, James answers, "No. I was hoping you would want my company this morning." He says it sheepishly, almost shyly.

 _You look as if you could use my company,_ Natalia had said to him once, sitting beside him in the darkness of a living room. He grunted at her, growled angrily and expected her to leave. She did not leave; she did not leave for years.

He has changed since then— not by much, but by enough. He is soft where he was bitter and hardened; loving where he was hateful and cruel.

The curse did not break with Natalia— maybe it was wishful thinking for him to think that it could— but she had brought the sunshine with her and taught him how to love again.  
Even when she left, and James was even more alone than he had been before her arrival, he could not let himself be filled with ire, with hatred as he used to be.

"I always want your company," Steve says. Light pink dusts his cheeks— James cannot decide if the blush is from his admittance or from the effort it takes to heft the basket off the large mahogany table.

James takes the basket from Steve and holds it with ease in his left hand. Steve settles his hand in the crook of James' bent right arm, curls his hand around James' forearm.

Steve has spent hours skirting the castle. James knows, because he has watched Steve as he does it.  
But Steve does not know the grounds like James knows them; does not know the grounds like someone who has had almost a century to explore them.

"Here—" James grunts.

He shoves aside a thick wall of bushes and trees growing in a thick entanglement. With a nod of his head, he beckons Steve to walk through.

"Wow," Steve murmurs.

James tries to see it through Steve's eyes; through the eyes of someone seeing it for the first time.

The broken walls of the old outbuilding covered in twining vines, pale wildflowers, standing abandoned in the center of the clearing. A butterfly flits past, blue and black catching in the sun— James knows the butterfly would not be here if not for Steve. The mere sight of it, of Steve staring transfixed around the clearing, burns him with a joy he cannot completely place.

Steve lays a checkered blanket on the dewy ground. James follows behind him and begins to unpack the picnic basket.

✴️

Natalia wore her one pair of olive green trousers more often than she wore any of the dresses James left for her.

She wore them on the night she first sat down to dinner with James. Legs crossed beneath the table, her hair dancing with the fire from the candles in the holders.

She wore them on the day he took her to the clearing, ending at her ankles and meeting the tops of her boots.  
Her red hair tied in a thick plait and falling down her back to meet her waist, Natalia told him she had wanted to be a ballerina when she was younger. Offering the information as they crunched their way through the thick forest growth.

Natalia wore them, that afternoon in the clearing, when first she had kissed James. When James had first professed his love to her, after the passage of many months.

This is what he thinks of, his knees drawn to his chest as he sits, uncushioned, on the ground. The taste of the apple pie lingers on his tongue, his lips— only faintly present beneath the acidic taste which accompanies everything he eats and drinks.

Steve lies near James, on the picnic blanket, one of his willowy arms pillowing his head. He is on his back, playing with the blue-black butterfly and watching it dance on the tips of his fingers.

He wears the same trousers as Natalia, the pair she had left behind. It hangs off his frame in a way it did not hang off hers.

"I used to want to be a butterfly, when I was younger," Steve says, smiling to himself.

"They are beautiful, and delicate," James says. The _like you_ goes unsaid, but hangs thinly between them and settles in the silent spaces of the conversation.

"They are free." Steve sighs. "They can go wherever they wish to go."

"So can you."

"I used to want to run away all the time," Steve says quietly, his intent stare on the fluttering butterfly. With a flap of it wings the butterfly launches from the man's fingers and flies to the wildflowers, settling with the others of its kind. "I like it here." He smiles at nothing in particular.

"You remind me of someone I knew once," James says. "Someone I loved."

Steve swirls gracefully into a sitting position, his legs crossed under him. "I do?"

He nods. "Yes, you do." _I used to bring her here all the time, this was our place._ "She was a fool, like you. And, like you, she called her foolishness bravery and thought it a testament to her intelligence." James smiles as he says it, glances at Steve and hopes he can see the mirth in James' eyes, in the corners of his mouth.

"I am no fool."

"Then why are you still here?"

The look he receives from Steve is cutting, a venomous one he remembers receiving from Natalia on more occasions than he cares to count.

"I'm a fool?" Steve questions, he holds a finger to his chest, his eyebrows raised in disbelief. He settles on his knees, cranes his neck to look up at James and inches closer to him. " _I'm_ a fool, yet you can't even see why I'm still here... I _like_ you, James— I _care_ for you. Why else would I stay?"

The man's hand is warm against James' cheek. James reaches up to  take the hand, eclipses it completely and twines their fingers together.  


☀

 _The curse will only break if he loves you,_ Steve hears Natalia's voice as clear as if she is beside him. _If he is completely in love with you._

_How will I know if he loves me?_

_You are a fae. You will feel it when he kisses you._  


_☀_  


He leans into Steve and inhales— he smells of shampoo and paint and the dew that touches the leaves.

James is gentle as he kisses him. He imagines the man had expected something more feral from James, not this soft meeting of lips— his breath and his fur tickling Steve's face.

Steve tastes of the picnic. He caresses James' face between his hands and pulls him closer. His smile is sweet against James' lips. James returns the smile readily, pulls away reluctantly.

 _About time,_ he hears Natalia. Imagines her laugh.

"So you _are_ a fool... I cannot offer you anything, Steve," James whispers, his voice hurts his throat when he speaks. "My castle is falling apart. And I am doomed to be the Beast which haunts its ruins until his demise." He interrupts Steve from speaking with a soft peck on his lips. "There is no breaking this curse. You have your entire life ahead of you and I... Do not."

"I know of a way to break the curse." His voice is barely audible, James is sure he has misheard.

"Pardon?"

"I know of a way to break the curse."  


☀️  


Natalia told Steve she knew the truth about him the moment she first set eyes on him, standing on her doorstep three months prior.

"Creature recognizes creature," she said to Steve, carefully wrapping his bruised knuckles in gauze. He was always bruising and bleeding, never knowing when to back down from a fight.

The swell of her belly grew more noticeable with each passing day. He did not ask her about it and she did not explain, did not mention it even once.  
The neighbours whispered about Natalia, cutting vicious glance her way only to silence themselves when she walked by. Steve heard it everywhere.

No longer was she _the stolen_ _Romanova_ _girl,_ but _the_ _Romanova_ _girl with the Beast inside her._

If it affected Natalia, she never allowed Steve to see.

"What are you talking about?" Steve asked, curling and uncurling his bound fists.

"You tremble in the cold as if you are dying, I have seen in it. You are never more at home than in the forest— and those creatures follow you as if you are one of their own." Natalia secured the gauze with a strip of tape. Hazel eyes to blue eyes, she said, "You're a fae, aren't you?"

He nodded silently. "How did you know?"

"Creature recognizes creature." Her shoulders rose in a shrug, she touched her fingertips to her stomach.

She awoke at midnight, six months later, her scream tearing through the village and waking the neighbours with her.

Steve crouched beside her as the midwives coaxed her through the birth. Held her hand as the baby tore her to shreds, ripped her body into tendrils and soaked the sheets in crimson.

Natalia lost the baby, but she cut the horns from its head the way one might cut the umbilical cord.

She strung one horn on a chain and wore it around her neck. She ground the other to dust and stored it in a small glass tube.  


☀  


The silence is unnerving. It is not the silence of his arrival— James a distance away and Steve left to his own devices. It is new and wrought with back-breaking tension.

James has not said a word more than his bewildered sputtering of "How—? Steven—?" And Steve longs to say something. He glances at James, at the thunder behind his eyes, and hurriedly decides he prefers the silence.

James stands in the doorway to the bedroom. Taking up all the space in the room; taking up all the air in the room and making it difficult for Steve to breathe.

His hand shakes as he searches his pack. He forces it to steady when he holds the tube to James.

"A powder will end my curse?" James asks, studying the fine brown dust in the clear glass with a creased brow.

Strands of stringy blond hair fall into his deep blue eyes as he shakes his head. "Yes. And no." He tucks his hair behind his ear and sighs.

Natalia had been right, of course she had been; she hardly ever is wrong. He feels a fool to acknowledge it but, when James had kissed him, Steve _had_ known— had felt it in the attack of clichéd sparks. It stung him, electrified him. He almost asked James if he had felt it, too.

James is not looking at him with the tenderness of earlier. Not now. His gaze his devoid of all but unyielding frost as he stares at the dust.

" _Yes... And no_?"

Steve produces a slim blade from his pocket. "We need a full moon," he declares, "And we need to go outside."

✴️

_Take him to the place to where his heart belongs._

The lantern burns ahead of them, leads them along the path hidden by thick growth. It is different in the fading light of dusk then it is when the sun shines in all its glory. The trees loom where they had danced gracefully; the rustle of leaves is menacing.

James stalks through the trees in front of Steve. Not speaking.

They enter the clearing, a murder of crows greeting them with their ominous cawing.

 _Under the light of the full moon,_ Natalia reminded Steve before he left, kissing him on his forehead.

He had asked her why, if she knew how to break the curse, she had done nothing when she had the chance.

Her smile was a vague curve, sadness dancing in its corners. "There are things I knew only too late. Like that love is powerful but it is not all it takes to break a hex, or that fae blood is more powerful than any magic. And that when you put the two together there is almost nothing you cannot achieve, no curse which cannot be broken."

He asked Natalia if she would ever tell him her story. She sent him off without an answer, her sharpened knife twisted in his abdomen.

"James, please say something." He hears the muted pleading in his voice, the vulnerability, and he hates himself for it. He wants James to speak to him, not feel sorry for him.

"Why did you come here?" James asks. He extends a hand and stops Steve, mouth open, before he can say anything. "Why did you _really_ come here?"

"It seems we have time," Steve says, arms braced on his knees. Early evening only beginning to set in, the moon is not due to arrive in its full strength for another few hours. "I really do care for you, James. More than I have cared for anybody in my entire life."

_Tell him that you were trained by an alchemist._

_Tell him you knew me when we were children, met me again when I returned._

_Tell him you were attacked by a gang of thieves._

_Tell him you were near his castle, injured and fearing for your life._

_Tell him I had spoken of him._

_Tell him you knew he would grant you sanctuary and that you knew he would not hurt you._

He breathes in deeply. It is shaky, rattling his lungs in the way it rattled his lungs when he was a child devastated by illness. "Natalia had told me so much about you," Steve says, "I swear, I think I fell in love with you long before I met you."

James' eyes in the darkness are a fluid orange, the lantern's light glowing in his midnight irises. His gaze, focused on Steve, is imploring.

He breathes in deeply. He does not tell James a word of the story Natalia had crafted for him; he tells him only the absolute truth.  


☀  


The cold seeps into his bones, each word Steve utters is like a blow to his chest. By the end of it, Steve wild-eyed in the lantern light, James does not know what exactly he feels.

The cold seeps into his bones, in a way it has not ever since Steve crawled, bleeding, onto his doorstep.

The cold seeps into his bones, even with Steve sitting across from him.

 _I think I have loved you for years._ _Meeting you has only made me more certain._ Steve had ended the story of what lead them to that moment, his eyes downcast as they are now.

Steve is not ashamed or embarrassed. James can read the deviant determination in the creases in his brow, in the hard line of his shoulders. He knows that Steve would do it again if he were given the chance.

"I should be grateful."

"You should be."

"I am." James touches a heavy-knuckled hand to Steve's cheek. "I am so grateful. Whatever happens, Steve, I love you. I love you for staying. And I love you for trying."  


☀️  


Moonlight dusts over him in gentle sheets. Shimmers over his skin and hair, casts him shades of almost ghost-like, empty pallor.

The lantern sits on the ground between him and James. Steve inhales deeply, filling his lungs with the smell of fresh forest air mingling with gasoline and fire.

Steve grits his teeth as the silver of the blade cuts into his bare palm. He stares at his veins, dark blue and clear through his pale skin.  
He stares, fascinated by the line of deep crimson which appears amongst the other lines of his palm.

A drop of blood falls into the ceramic bowl— balancing on the uneven ground, the ashes of the horn sit evenly inside— into a shallow well pressed into the center of the powder by Steve's slim thumb.

The cut is already healing and will be a scar by morning. Steve is transfixed by the deep red and pale grey-brown as it mixes together.

" _Propia_ _manu_ ," he whispers, repeating the words under his breath and growing steadily louder. Louder still, until his chant envelops the two of them in the clearing and has the settled crows singing their songs of horror, destruction, damnation. Blood and ash combine without prompt, stir together with the force of his words alone. " _Propia_ _manu_." Steve ends breathlessly.

He falls into a sudden silence, the forest falling into silence with him. His ears ring; the absolute _nothing_ is deafening.

 _Propia_ _manu,_ Steve remembers Natalia teaching him the words, _By one's own_ _hand—_ _do not underestimate the power of these words when said by you._

A sheen of sweat covers him, sticks his hair to the curve of his forehead.

His hands are steady, the cold moonlight falling on him in sheets. "Drink this," Steve orders lightly, placing the bowl from his hands into James' monstrous, shaking ones.

Uncertain, James looks at the mixed potion. "Are you sure of this?"

"Trust me." He waits for James to exhale the breath of air he had taken in, to nod his weary permission. Tipping the potion into James mouth, Steve chants under his breath as James swallows it down in small sips, " _More_ _ferarum_."

A flash of thunder sounds from behind them. And Steve cannot help but think that he is exhausted from all the clichés he has experienced in the last twenty-four hours. Cannot help but think this, even as a ray of lightning crackles onto the ceramic bowl— singeing Steve and James' hands, sending the dish crashing to the ground.

A flash of thunder sounds from behind them. He stares down at his blackened hands, healing already.

"Steve—" James calls, his voice frigid with a depth of fear. Of pain.

A ray of lightning crackles, snaps to the ground fiercely. Steve raises a hand to his chest. Light and smoke blind him, the cloying smell of burning fur fills his nose.

He had not known what to expect, neither had Natalia.  
Steve had expected fire enveloping the castle and all that surrounded it. He had expected a flash of white light. He had expected a painless miracle.

He had not expected this. The blood-curdling scream which tears from James' throat shakes the foundation upon which they stand. The trees rattle with the force of his screams. The sky opens up in a shower of pelting rain and thunder.

Rain pelts Steve, soaks him thoroughly. The smoke clears in his eyes. He stumbles forward, his terrified yell drowned out in the ensuing chaos.

Lightning bolt after lightning bolt spews from the sky onto James. They seek him out and cling to him in a violent embrace. He is an obscured creature of crackling blue and blinding light. Steve is grateful for the storm, if only for the fact it overwhelms the worst of James' wretched screams.

It ends as quickly as it began. A final lightning bolt snapping to the ground. A figure, burnt, falling in a crumpled heap.

Steve is unsteady, legs weak as he jogs the short distance to James.

"James—" Steve falls beside him, reaches for him with hands as shaky and unsteady as his legs. He cradles the Beast's head as it falls limply in Steve's lap. Tears stream down his face in thin streaks. "James..." He sobs, voice thick with tears.  


☀  


The storm rages for an hour. Clutching the curving horn which rests in the hollow of her throat, Natalia does something she has not done for many years.

She keeps watch from her window. Sends a hushed prayer to any god which has not forsaken her.

"Do not burn him," Natalia whispers, "Amen."  


☀️  


The castle feels different. He notices when he awakens, fighting through the heavy fog of sleep.

The castle feels different. Even beneath the haze he finds himself in, he can feel it.

The castle feels different. It is gone, he notices, in this place between waking and dreaming, that oppressive cold of the castle which finds its way under his skin and never lets him be.

He fights himself further into consciousness. The fingers tangled in his sheets, gripping firmly and weighing on his torso, is the next thing James notices.

 _Steve._ He shifts to take in the sleeping man's face. The movement is infinitesimal yet James grunts with it— the pain which shoots through him is sudden and sharp, the kind of pain that would cripple him if he were standing.

The sound wakes Steve, he straightens in the chair which he set beside James' bed. Purple colours his skin like a pair of bruises beneath his eyes, and a second passes before the confusion clears from his gaze.

"James," he breathes the name out and it one of the most perfect awakenings James has ever had. "My God, James." Steve exhales the name, runs a hand through hair flattened from sleeping against the bed. He bursts into hysterical laughter.

The castle feels different, and he does too. The cough wracks through his body, echoes in the room but not in the passage beyond. "Did it work?" James asks.

"Yes," Steve nods, lifting James' hand— fingers slender and human and deeply scarred— to show him. "It's working. Slowly."

"It's working." His whisper is incredulous and he stares at his hand, intertwined with Steve's. James laugh is quiet, heavy with disbelief.

The lightning had burned him. Even with ointments and potions James knows that unfading scars will dance over the expanses of his body. Knows, too, that the pain will be a constant for months.

His laugh is as hysterical as Steve's is, then.

Grasping for Steve, James tightens his arms around the small waist and holds him firm. He chuckles into his mouth as he kisses him.

"Thank you," he whispers, "Thank you."  


☀️  


She teaches a self-defense class in the enclosed space of her backyard. It is the last class of the day. Twenty-two of her most advanced students end the session with stretches and warm conversation.

"Alright, that is _it_ ," Natalia calls. Her small smile is genuine as she wishes each student farewell, with a promise of seeing them all the next week.

Natalia is proud of how well she has settled into this new town, this suburb bordering the thriving city of New York.

Here, she is not _the_ _Romanova_ _girl._ Here she is simply Natalia; aloof, helpful, slightly terrifying Natalia who makes her living from fighting and teaching.

She has been given the opportunity to start afresh and she has grabbed it with open, unflinching, arms.

The new city has given Natalia a chance to reinvent herself— allowed her a freedom she never had in the shadow of the castle and its Beast, allowed her, even, to fall in love once again.

Here, she is not _the_ _Romanova_ _girl._ She is just Natalia; she is just another face, one of millions of others.

The horn, her talisman, pokes against her collarbone, having shifted wildly during the intricate exercises.

 _You cannot completely run away._ Natalia thinks, righting the chain to sit comfortably against her neck.

She left the night after the storm hit, at midnight to avoid the questioning stares of her neighbours. Not one of them would dare utter a word to her— to _that_ _Romanova_ _girl_ _—_ but they would all too readily judge from afar and gossip amongst themselves.

She left the night after the storm hit, secure in the knowledge that Steve had completed the task that had been set out for him.

She left the night after the storm, unable to spend a moment longer in that hellish village.

A soft cough sounds from behind Natalia. Drags her from her reverie, grabs her attention almost instantly. Her red hair, lopped off to meet her shoulders, flies as she turns on her heel.

"Good afternoon, Natalia?" the man greets. His blue eyes, shaded by a raised hand, twinkle in the fading sunlight.

Beside him stands a tall man, a brunet with his hair falling below his chin. Natalia can see the deep scars which mark his skin— they travel below the collar of his shirt and his sleeves, cover more than just the exposed skin. He rests his weight on an elaborate silver cane held in his left hand.

She stills were she stands, rooted in place by shock and disbelief.

Her voice catches in her throat. For a moment she wonders if she is hallucinating; delirious from exercising in the heat.

"Natalia?" the dark haired man prompts with a half-smile.

Her voice catches in her throat, but his voice is enough. She never imagined she would hear it again.

"Steve," Natalia mutters, taking him in with an appraising gaze. Her breath hitches, her step falters as she walks towards the pair. " _Bucky."_  


**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see how I procrastinate, shoot me some asks or just hang out, you can find me on Tumblr at [aycebasketcase](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aycebasketcase)


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